Holocaust Education

SSRE is truly committed to raising awareness of the Holocaust, and  invites educational institutions in the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi and in Lucknow, to get in touch with it at social.regeneration.and.equity@gmail.com if they would like it to screen Holocaust films, exhibit Holocaust posters and to organise lectures for their students. The Executive Director of the Youth Outreach Programme of the SSRE, Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi, is a well known Holocaust educator who led an educational workshop at an international conference on Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel in 2012, attended an international educator institute at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, United States in September 2013 and also Salzburg Global Seminar's third symposium on Holocaust Education & Genocide Prevention in Salzburg, Austria in June 2014.  He has to his credit the first ever Holocaust films retrospective in South Asia, which he organised at the University of Lucknow and the Ambedkar University in Lucknow in 2009. He would be glad to give free lectures.

Holocaust Education assists students in developing an understanding of the roots and ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping in any society, and provide a context for exploring the dangers of remaining silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of oppression of others. It makes the students realise that unless the democratic institutions are appreciated, nurtured and protected, they cannot be sustained, for democracy is fragile and that silence and indifference to the suffering of others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society can - however unintentionally - perpetuate the problems. It stimulates students to think about the use and abuse of power, and the roles and responsibilities of individuals, organisations, and nations when confronted with civil rights violations and/or policies of genocide.

Raising awareness of the Holocaust is also one of the tasks that the United Nations is devoted to and it even has a programme devoted solely to it .

The Holocaust could happen only because individuals, organisations, and governments made choices that not only legalised discrimination, but also allowed prejudice, hatred, and ultimately, mass murder, to occur. Holocaust Education helps students develop an awareness of the value of pluralism and encourages them to be more apreciative of diversity in a pluralistic society. It helps the students to understand that it is the responsibility of citizens in any society to learn to identify danger signals, and to know when to react to prevent genocide and the steps required.